9+ Best Cloud Backup Tools to Protect Your Files in 2023

Best Cloud Backup Software

In the simplest of terms, a cloud backup tool stores a copy of your important data – such as images, documents, pdfs, etc. – from your computer and into the internet. This means that your business’s data and applications are stored in an online service that is distinct from the servers you usually use to perform your daily operations and are accessible in case of an emergency.

The process behind choosing the right cloud backup tool for your organization starts with understanding the requirements of your business. Beyond that, there are a few critical factors that need your attention such as:

  • Price
  • Security
  • Usability
  • Tech Support
  • Scalability

Why should I backup my files to the cloud?

Cloud backups might seem like an added expense but are necessary to ensure the safety of your data. If a disaster occurs, such as your computer, device, or server malfunctioning due to viruses or any number of other reasons, your data will be safe, and your business won’t be affected.

When you store a copy of your files on more than one server (preferably in the cloud), a disaster won’t hinder the functioning of your organization. This is because you can immediately shift to your backup to access and recover the data and resources.

There are numerous tools available in the industry that can assist and aid your organizations with this.

What are the Best Cloud Backup Tools?

Here are the ten best cloud backup tools that you can choose for your organization based on the nature of your business and requirements:

1. Backblaze

The leading cloud backup tool

With over 1 exabyte (that’s over 1 billion gigabytes!) of data stored and over 50 million files served across 175 countries, Backblaze is one of the most reliable cloud services in the market. They are super easy to work with, more importantly affordable. This means that you can grow your business and backup your important files without breaking the bank.

Backblaze

Backblaze offers several types of backups including:

Personal Backup:

  • Backup unlimited files to any 1-device for $6 per month.
  • Backup unlimited attached hard drives to your 1-device.
  • Restore deleted files from up to 30-days, or upgrade to 1-year or even forever!

Business Backup:

Business backup offers three kinds of backups for your business:

  • Veeam backup: The price for this $8/TB per month. With this, you can shift all your Veeam data to Backblaze servers.
  • Server backup: The price for this is $0.005/GB per month for storage and $0.01/GB per month to download data. You can easily backup your data using its integration services.
  • NAS backup: The prices for this are the same as that of the server backup. Backblaze offers integration options from which you can choose one that best suits your NAS device.

B2 Cloud Storage:

This is a robust space for IT companies and developers who want to develop and host applications, store their data, or even build their own backup within B2.

The best aspect of this is that organizations can easily transfer their S3 compatible APIs to this storage and the reason they would do that is its relatively cheap pricing.

Benefits:

The major benefits are economical and straightforward pricing, the robustness of the platform, and high security.

If your major organization is looking for backup of its data, look no further and signup!

2. Microsoft OneDrive

Not just a backup but a 360-degree productivity tool

Microsoft OneDrive is used by over 400 million users for free and over 11,000 companies. Its dynamic business plans offer four significant packages.

Microsoft OneDrive

OneDrive for Business (Plan 1):

  • For $5 user/month, you’ll get standalone storage of 1 TB with no office tools included.
  • It provides file sharing, productivity tools, and access from anywhere.
  • Besides this, it also provides help with advanced security, support, and deployment.

OneDrive for Business (Plan 2):

  • For $10 user/month, you’ll get the same features as the previous plan with an addition of advanced security and compliance capabilities.

Microsoft 365 Business Basic:

  • For $5 user/month, you’ll get 1TB of storage per user.
  • Your services will include Exchange, Teams, and Sharepoint.
  • The office tools included would be Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. However, desktop versions of these tools will not be available.

Microsoft 365 Business Standard:

  • For $12.50 user/month, you’ll get Microsoft 365 Business Standard with 1TB of storage per user and unlimited storage for everyone if there are more than 5 users. The services are the same as the Basic Plan, with the addition of Yammer. The tools are the same as the Basic Plan, with the addition of Outlook, One Note, Access (PC only), and Publisher (PC only).

Benefits:

Microsoft OneDrive is known for its encryption protocols to ensure high security for youfiles. File sharing is made simple, productivity is increased with its office tools, and even remote working is enabled with the help of Microsoft Teams.

With remote working becoming the new normal, it’ll be easier for you to signup and use this service for a nominal fee.

3. Google Drive

Efficiency at its best

Google Drive is known to save 10% of a user’s time weekly while providing industry-level security. The platform offers four packages depending on your needs.

Google Drive

Business Starter:

  • The price for this plan is $6 per user/month.
  • It offers custom and secure business emails, security and management controls, 100 participant video meetings, and 30GB cloud storage per user.

Business Standard:

  • The price for this plan is $12 per user/month.
  • It offers all features as the Starter Plan with an additional option of enhanced support for a fee.
  • Furthermore, this plan facilitates 150 participant video meetings + recording and storage of 2TB per user.

Business Plus:

  • This plan comes for $18 per user/month.
  • It offers all features as the Standard Plan with a few additions.
  • This has the options of eDiscovery and retention that allow you to search and retain users’ Workspace data.
  • It also provides enhanced security and access to Vault and endpoint management that help keep your company data secure.
  • Besides this, it allows 250 participant video meetings + recording + attendance tracking and cloud storage of 5TB per user.

Enterprise:

  • The price for this is a variable that depends on your organization’s requirements.
  • It offers all features as the Plus Plan with a few additions.
  • This provides S/MIME encryption, DLP (Data Loss Prevention), facilitation of data access using Data Regions, and Enhanced Support.
  • It also provides noise cancellation and an in-domain live streaming feature for video meetings and gives you as much storage as you want.

Benefits:

Google Drive is quite helpful due to its rich set of tools that facilitate a smooth workflow. It works best with its tools and has plugins using which you can connect it to external tools.

The security measures follow the industry standard and thus keeps the data of millions of people safe!

Your data needs protection too. So get the best plan that gives you security and makes you efficient at what you do.

4. Dropbox

Drop your files, and Dropbox will take care of the rest

Dropbox has over 600 million users, more than 400,000 teams use Dropbox business, and 1.2 billion files are uploaded on the platform every day.

This platform offers three prominent packages for businesses.

Dropbox

Standard:

  • This plan costs $12.50 per user/month with a minimum of 3 users.
  • It offers a long series of features such as 5TB storage, 180-day file recovery, 256 AES SSL/TSL encryption, single admin login, upto 2GB file transfer option using Dropbox, computer backup, smart sync, file locking, office tools integration, and much more!

Advanced:

  • This plan costs $20 per user/month with a minimum of 3 users.
  • It offers all features as the Standard Plan with the addition of advanced admin controls, tiered admin roles, traffic, and insights, upto 100GB file transfer option using Dropbox, advanced user management, and more!

Enterprise:

  • This plan has a custom price based on the organization’s requirements.
  • It offers all features of the Advanced Plan with the addition of a centralized admin console, real-time alerts and notifications, advanced training for end-users, and 24/7 phone support, among other features.

Benefits:

All in all, it is a highly productive and easy-to-use platform for your cloud backup that offers productivity tools that enable collaboration & co-creation.

You and your team can signup and co-create with this simple and straightforward tool while backing up all your data.

5. Box.com

Choice of the most prominent business organizations

Box.com has powered over 100,000 businesses, of which 68% are Fortune 500 companies. This goes on to add credibility and authenticity to the platform.

The platform has four plans for businesses of every kind.

Box

Starter:

  • The price of this plan is $5 per user/month with a minimum of 3 users.
  • It has built-in integration with Office 365 and Google Workspace tools.
  • The platform facilitates the collaboration of upto 10 users and provides upto 100GB of storage per user.

Business:

  • This plan costs $15 per user/month with a minimum of 3 users.
  • It offers all features of the Starter plan with a few additions.
  • It provides unlimited storage, data loss prevention features, facilitates collaboration across the entire organization, custom branding, admin console access, and more!

Business Plus:

  • The price for this plan is $25 per user/month with a minimum of 3 users.
  • It offers all the Business plan features with additions such as unlimited collaborators outside the organization, advanced admin controls, and complete user activity tracking, among other features.

Enterprise:

  • This plan comes at $35 per user/month with a minimum of 3 users.
  • It offers you all the Business Plus plan features with additional robust features like 100K API calls per month, HIPAA/FedRamp compliances, and advanced security settings, among others.

Benefits:

The most prominent benefits of this tool are its simple collaboration and content sharing abilities. It enables people across organizations to work together and thus increase the productivity of businesses.

Now, you can signup and protect your data while working with any tool of your choice. And all of it will be in one shared space at Box.com.

6. iCloud

Pioneering privacy and security

iCloud is home to 850 million users and their data, of which 170 million use the paid service. The only downside to iCloud is that it requires you to have an Apple product such as an iPhone, iPad, or Mac. It has simple and straightforward storage plans.

  • For $0.99, it offers you a storage of 50GB.
  • For $2.99, it offers you a storage of 200GB.
  • And for $9.99, it offers you a storage of 1TB.
iCloud

Apple as an organization has always been a pioneer of security and data privacy. This makes it keep an organization’s security and safety of data as its highest priority.

Benefits:

iCloud makes syncing and sharing of data easier. Working remotely has become the new norm, and iCloud ensures a smooth flow of operations by making accessibility to files simpler.

Just a few taps and you can signup to iCloud and claim your data privacy.

7. CrashPlan

A simple backup tool for your new business

CrashPlan has worked with customers across businesses and homeowners. Like iCloud, it has a simple pricing structure for its backup plans. In fact, it’s much simpler.

CrashPlan

It has a flat fee of $10 per month per computer, and every new computer costs an additional $9.99 per month. This model is quite helpful for newly starting small businesses and want to have a backup of all their organizational data.

Benefits:

It offers file retention, protection of hard drives, restoration of files from computers, customer support, and even enhanced security systems at such a low price.

So, if you’re starting your new business and want the right cloud backup tool, you can signup for CrashPlan!

8. Carbonite

Robust backup support for small & medium businesses

With over 1 million users, Carbonite is another robust platform that facilitates cloud and computer backup for small businesses at a competitive price.

Carbonite

It has three plans based on the number of devices you need backed up:

1 to 3 computers:

  • Plans begin at $6/month.
  • It provides automatic cloud backup, external hard drive backup,  remote access to files, and 128-bit encryption.

3 to 25 computers:

  • Plans begin at $24/month.
  • It provides all features from the previous plan with centralized management and admin controls and FERPA, GLBA & HIPAA support.

Computers and Servers

  • Plans begin at $50/month.
  • Besides offering all features of the previous plan, it also provides 256-bit encryption, image backup, bare-metal restore, and backup for databases and applications.

Benefits:

This model is similar to that of Backblaze, and it offers cloud backup with high security at an economical price for small businesses and enterprises.

If you’re looking for an affordable way to protect your data, you should signup for Carbonite.

9. iDrive

A giant hub of data for businesses

iDrive enables over 3 million customers to backup over 100 petabytes (that’s 100 million gigabytes!) of data. This cloud backup tool primarily has two packages for small to medium businesses.

The prices of the two packages are the same, but the difference lies in the amount of storage and number of users allowed. While one will enable a higher number of users but lower storage, the other allows higher storage but a lower number of users.

iDrive

iDrive Team:

  • This plan costs $74.63 in its first year and $99.50 from subsequent years.
  • It allows 5 computers and 5 users with 5 TB of storage.
  • Along with this, it also provides features such as continuous data backup, backup of external hard drive and NAS devices, disk clone, ability to manage computers remotely, collaboration, sync, and support.

iDrive Business:

  • This plan costs the same as iDrive Team Plan.
  • However, it allows unlimited users, computers, servers, Exchange, SQL, and NAS devices.
  • It offers all features as the Team Plan and server backups for SQL, Exchange, Sharepoint, and other tools.

Benefits:

Overall, this tool helps you gauge your business requirements and then choose your plan accordingly. With its easy-to-use interface and quick-to-respond customer support, it’s all you need for your business.

Sign up for iDrive today to protect and backup your data!

10. pCloud

Simple, economical, and a diverse backup platform

pCloud started in 2013, and today the Switzerland-based company has over 14 million users on its platform.

pCloud

It has a simple flat fee structure wherein the price is $9.99 per user/month. At this cost, pCloud offers the following features.

  • 1TB storage per user
  • A tiered access consoles for teams
  • Data sharing and collaboration
  • Activity monitoring
  • Customized branding

Benefits:

The primary advantages of pCloud are management of files on the go, high-level of security, and easy-to-use integration tools. pCloud can be your go-to backup and data-sharing tool so start today!

Cloud Backup Tools FAQs

Are my files secure in the cloud?

Overall, yes, they are! Though the security ultimately depends on the vendor and the underlying technology it uses, choosing the right cloud backup provider will ensure your data security.

Can my files in the cloud sync between devices?

Yes, the most popular services do offer syncing between multiple devices so that you can access all your data from wherever you are and from any device that you use.

Should I still back up my computer to an external drive?

To keep your data safe from any kind of failure, use the 3-2-1 backup rule. According to this rule, you need to keep three copies of your data, out of which two of them should be stored on two different kinds of storage. For instance, one could be an external drive and the other a NAS drive. And finally, you need to ensure that you keep at least one copy off-site so that another copy’s safe if there’s a disaster.

Cloud Backup Tools Summary

To sum it all up, cloud backup and computer backup are necessary measures to keep your data safe. After all, data is your organization and business’s biggest wealth. So, leverage the tools that are out there and subscribe to the services. They needn’t be expensive but just suitable for your requirements.

References:

  • https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/microsoft-onedrive-cloud-storage-review
  • https://www.cloudwards.net/review/onedrive/f/97279/google-drive-for-work-review
  • https://www.trustradius.com/products/dropbox-business/reviews?qs=pros-and-cons
  • https://www.trustradius.com/products/box/reviews?qs=pros-and-cons
  • http://thestartupmag.com/using-icloud-business-need-know/
  • https://saasscout.com/statistics/dropbox-statistics/
  • https://www.getapp.com/collaboration-software/a/pcloud-business/reviews/

Last updated on by Joshua Holdeman

About the author

Joshua Holdeman is a DevOps Engineer, Sr. Software Engineer, and Digital Marketing Consultant. With over 12 years in the industry and backed by hundreds of digital marketing projects and websites developed under his direction, he brings experience and knowledge allowing for the recommendation of high-impact business software, tools, and programs to help non-profit organizations, small businesses, and entrepreneurs to launch or grow their business. Before starting this blog, Josh was the Sr. Software Engineer for a world leader in a marketing and graphic communications franchise system.

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